Lokanatha Gosvami lived to a great age, still absorbed in his solitary worship of Radha-Vinoda. The accounts of his final days do not agree with one another on several important points. The sources really do disagree on the month, the lunar fortnight, and even the specific place of his disappearance.
Conflicting Traditions #
One widely repeated account places his final bhajana and disappearance at Khadiravana, near a village called Khoyra Gram, beside a lake called Yugala-kunda. It gives the date as Krishnastami (the eighth day of the dark fortnight) in the month of Shravana. A closely related version agrees on Khadiravana and Yugala-kunda but gives the eighth day of the bright fortnight of Shravana instead. A third account, drawn from Srila Bhakti Ballabh Tirtha Maharaj's "Sri Chaitanya: His Life and Associates," gives a specific year, Shaka 1510, which corresponds to 1588-89 CE. But it places the date in the month of Asharh, not Shravana, again on the eighth day of the dark fortnight. A separate devotional account, independent of that book, supports this third tradition, the one that gives a year. It too places Lokanatha Gosvami's disappearance in the month of Asharh, on the eighth day of the dark fortnight. It gives no year of its own. But its month and fortnight match exactly those of Srila Bhakti Ballabh Tirtha Maharaj's Shaka 1510 date. No source explains all of these differences, and we do not invent an answer here.
| Detail | Description |
|---|---|
| Disappearance site (one tradition) | Khadiravana, near Khoyra Gram, beside Yugala-kunda |
| Disappearance date (bright-fortnight tradition) | Ashtami, bright fortnight of Shravana |
| Disappearance date (dark-fortnight tradition) | Krishnastami, month of Shravana |
| Disappearance date (dated tradition, corroborated by a second source) | Ashtami, dark fortnight of Asharh, Shaka 1510 (1588-89 CE) |
| Memorial (puspa) samadhi | Courtyard of the Radha-Gokulananda temple, Vrindavana |
One Samadhi, Two Places #
At least part of this apparent contradiction can be explained by a distinction that Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition makes. It separates a devotee's actual place of departure from a memorial, or *puspa-samadhi* (literally a "flower samadhi"). Such a memorial is often set up afterward at a place of special importance in the devotee's life and worship. Several sources describe Lokanatha's puspa-samadhi as standing in a small courtyard beside the Radha-Gokulananda temple in Vrindavana proper. Narottama's own samadhi was later placed in that very courtyard, close to that of his guru, as Narottama Dasa Thakura's disappearance and legacy already describes. Vishvanatha Chakravarti Thakura is also buried in that same small courtyard, alongside the enshrined Deities of Vijaya-Govinda, worshiped there by Baladeva Vidyabhusana.
What Became of Radha-Vinoda #
According to tradition, the original Radha-Vinoda Deity that Lokanatha carried through the forests of Vraja for most of his life is now worshiped in Jaipur, Rajasthan. It is said to have been moved there at some point, to protect it during a time of danger to Vrindavana under Mughal rule. At one time only a single source reported this detail, but now another source confirms it independently. The same devotional account that confirms the Asharh disappearance tradition above also says simply that Lokanatha's Radha-Vinodji receives service in Jaipur today. This matches the tradition recorded here. A pratibhu-murti remains on the altar of the Radha-Gokulananda temple in Vrindavana to this day. A pratibhu-murti is a replica authorized through proper ritual, and worship offered to it has the same value as worship offered to the original. This is the temple that Vishvanatha Chakravarti Thakura later rebuilt on the site where Lokanatha himself had once done his bhajana. The same temple, tradition holds, also came to house a Govardhana-shila that Mahaprabhu himself had kept for three years, pressing it to his heart, before he gave it to Raghunatha Dasa Goswami. This is a further sign of how fully the memories and sacred objects of Vrindavana's early renunciants came to be gathered into this one small temple area.
A Separate Summary Chronology #
A different, less detailed table of dates, found elsewhere in the same devotional account cited above, gives Lokanatha Gosvami's life a third set of dates. It gives 1483 CE for his appearance, 1509 CE for his arrival in Vrindavana together with Bhugarbha Gosvami, and 1585 CE for his disappearance. The 1509 arrival date broadly agrees with the traditional date given earlier (Shaka 1431, or roughly 1509-1510 CE, for his departure from Bengal). But the 1585 disappearance year is a few years earlier than the Shaka 1510 (1588-89 CE) tradition confirmed above. And the 1483 birth year is not repeated anywhere else, not even in that same devotional account's own detailed telling of Lokanatha's life. So these figures are noted here only as a separate, less detailed list of dates. They do not settle the questions about his dates already described above.
A Legacy Measured in One Disciple #
So far as any surviving record shows, Lokanatha Gosvami accepted exactly one disciple in his entire life. That fact alone makes his legacy unusual among the acharyas of this tradition. He did not leave a lineage of many direct students. Instead, his influence on Gaudiya Vaishnavism runs almost entirely through Narottama Dasa Thakura. Narottama's preaching in Bengal, his songs, and his role in organizing the Kheturi festival went on to shape the movement for generations. In time, this lineage came down through Bhaktivinoda Thakura, Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura and Srila Prabhupada into the ISKCON temples. There Narottama's songs, and indirectly Lokanatha's own example of renunciation, are still carried forward today. It is a striking legacy for a man who wished, above all, to be left as unrecorded as possible. Every account of his life shows this wish again and again.
